


Waiting Way Too Long

by TWDObsessive



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death (Merle), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Daryl Dixon, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 16:03:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15440649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/pseuds/TWDObsessive
Summary: Rick finds Daryl after the archer had to kill his walker-turned brother.





	Waiting Way Too Long

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lotr58](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotr58/gifts).



> This writers block is killing me! I really am working on a longer chaptered fic but have been struggling creatively. This is a prompt from the one and only lotr58. I gave her one and she gave me one since we are both struggling a bit with writing lately. Look for lotr58's fic coming out by the end of the week!

It ain’t right, goddamnit. All his miserable life he’s done the wrong thing and the one time he tries to step up, tries to help Rick do something he knew the sheriff wasn’t capable of and look what’s happened. Fucking Merle. Fucking goddamn dumb Merle. I feel tears coming and goddamnit I hate tears. But he’s my brother...was. And now he’s gone. There’s no turning back to a world where my only kin breathes. 

He was such a damn prejudiced, redneck, junkie, asshole. But he was mine, my brother, my kin, my first friend. He was the one who came in to save my life when the end first started. Cable was out -- bill weren’t paid -- and I hadn’t heard a thing about the undead. He flew in packing a bag for me as he yelled nonsense about people eating each other. At first I thought he was high as the clouds, talking crazy shit. Well, it was crazy shit, but as we climbed into the truck, I saw it was true. Neighbors were screaming as other “people” were chewing off arms and ears and digging into guts. It was like a horror movie. And Merle rode in like John Wayne to save the day. He wasn’t always there for me...but the times he was, I’ll always be thankful for.

I sit looking at his lifeless twice-dead body, the feel of dried tear stains on my cheeks. How can I go on without him? He may have been more of a dick than a decent brother but goddamnit he was _mine_ and I don’t got much that belongs to me. Never have.

I move back to his body and check his pockets, taking a pocket knife. I open the blade and press Merle’s bloody fingerprint on it and close it back up for safe keeping. I check my pants for a cigarette and find one, lighting up as I sit in the dirt surrounded by dead bodies.

“So that’s it?” I ask Merle. Ain’t crazy. Know he can’t hear me but...but, I just…

“You’re just dead and that’s it. You’re leaving me _again_ Merle, you asshole.”

I shook my head and blew out some smoke. “Always leaving me.”

“You know who ain’t left me yet? Rick Grimes. He done good by me and he’s by my side through this whole thing. We’re a team. _Family_.”

I stand up and pace back and forth. “You probably saved his life. You do that for him...or for me?” I ain’t fool enough to think Merle never knew I was gay and the way I follow Rick around couldn’t have been missed either.”

“That prison? Those people? That’s where I belong. I think you were beginning to see that.”

Deep down, Merle really did want what was best for me. He just had a back-assed way of showing it sometime.

I suck in the last drag of my cigarette, drop it to the ground and stomp it out as the tendrils of smoke leave my nose and dance in the air before me. I need to pick up more smokes. I startle at the sound of a vehicle coming and before I can hide, I recognize it as one we use from the prison. It stops and Rick steps out of it, walking towards me with concern drawn all over his face. He stops and looks down at Merle and he hiccups a cry. Then he moves to me and pulls me into an embrace I weren’t ready for, nearly knocks me off my feet. 

“Oh, Daryl. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” he whispers as the hug goes on and on. I know it needs to end soon before my reaction grows any more evident in my pants. No one can console me like Rick, and I want that, but bodies touching the way they are makes for a little too much southward blood flow. I pull away even though it’s not what I really want to do and I wipe at my eyes in case there’s any evidence of my tears.

“We can bring him back to the prison. Bury him,” Rick offers. I nod because I’m too overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude to do anything else. Rick always seems to know what I need. Sometimes he knows when even I don’t.

When we lifted Merle into the bed of the truck it was wordless. Rick and I ain’t needed words since the quarry. We speak with eyes and nods and intuition. As Rick closes the gate on the bed of the truck I feel tears coming again. At the loss of Merle, at what Merle could never quite be, at the affectionate tone in Rick’s words. He hugs me again, tight against him so that I can smell his scent -- hard work and dirt. He rubs his hands over my back as I sob into his shoulder.

“There aren’t any words to make this better,” he whispers before he kisses me softly on the forehead. “I wish there was and wish I had them cause I’d do anything to take this pain away, Daryl. Seeing you hurt, _hurts_.

And I know what he means. I remember the way my stomach sank when Rick lost Lori. Rick crying destroys me; it makes my eyes burn and my skin hurt. I was sad about Lori, I was. But the thing that really put me on my knees was the hurting I had for Rick. 

I feel him kiss me on the temple again and I lift my head a bit. I need something good to fight this grief. Something sweet and honest and pure. He kisses me again at the top of my cheek right along the line of my tears. 

“Rick,” I whisper without looking at him. How can I look? If I’m wrong and this isn’t a chance to taste him and love him I’ll be even more wounded than I already am, but then one of his hands reaches the back of my neck and massages it. Would he do that for Glenn? Hershel? Tyreese? I can’t imagine it and I realize it’s mine, it’s only for me. He lifts my chin with his fingers and looks into my damp eyes. 

“Yes?”

“I...I…” I can’t look away from him, not with those tranquil, tropical blue eyes so wide and inviting. And then he leans in and kisses me. On the mouth. With his mouth. His eyes stay closed as he waits for my response and I feel him tense in fear so I quickly kiss back, letting my lips part for him, leaving myself open so he can take away everything that’s inside me. Our mouths nibble and bite, tongues slide in gentle exploration and hands roam around one another’s bodies, sliding over muscles and slipping into strands of hair.

When we pull apart to breathe I’m gasping and dizzy. “I’ve wanted this,” he says. “Hope I’m not taking advantage.”

I try my best to smile as I shake my head.

“Wanted it since Andrea shot you and I thought you were dead,” he confesses.

“Wanted ya since we was looking for Merle in Atlanta,” I say.

“Sounds like we’ve both been waiting way too long. Life is too fragile to go on waiting,” he says and he grabs hold of me again and kisses with more fervor than before. “Let’s get back to the prison,” he says between kisses. “See what else we’ve both been waiting way too long for."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I might try a few more one-shot prompts to get my juices flowing before I try to go back to my long fic.


End file.
